Talk:William Golding

Latest comment: 7 years ago by Hux in topic Legit quote?

2009 edit

Feels like I'm reading the whole Lord of the Flies here. I'm here for a quote, not a transcript. 139.164.246.58 08:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Yes, the passage from chapter 11 greatly exceeds Wikiquote:Limits on quotations for length of quotes. It ought to be trimmed down. ~ Ningauble 15:47, 21 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Ah, thanks to InvisibleSun for trimming it. ~ Ningauble 19:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Limits on quotations check - section Lord of the Flies edit

The section about "Lord of the Flies" has been trimmed down, see here, which has been undone here. Now I checked the Wikiquote:Limits on quotations (which states: A recommended maximum of five lines of prose... for every ten pages of a book not in the public domain. This is equal to about 1.25% of the total content of a book.) and found:

  • The current (untrimmed) section (see here) contained about 240 lines
  • This was compared with the 1983 Penguin edition, which contains 291 pages.
  • With the limits of quotation of 5 lines per 10 pages, the limit is 145 lines.

The conclusion is that the section should be trimmed down.

Now there is another argument why I think this section should be trimmed down (at this moment). The lemma on Wikibooks also contains a large portion of quotes. Personally I wasn't aware, that they had Wikibook lemma's like that. Although this is another website, I think, this is another argument why the limits of quotations should not be exceeded. -- Mdd (talk) 10:44, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Yes, the section needs further trimming. I don't know why it was restored in the first place. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply
Normally an edit summary cull is not considered a valid reason here to trim articles down. Now Kalki just made a (small) concession by removing two quotes (see here), but he has a point that these limit on quotations are not absolute. If you could explain some more, why you think it should be further trimmed down, we could work this out. -- Mdd (talk) 12:06, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply
I for one disagree with the trimming. And I always find it almost amusing when WQ:LOQ is cited as if it were law (especially to the level of detail of parsing the number of lines that are permissible). This is not an approved policy and I believe it should not be used as an ironclad rule that is used to bludgeon pages. To my mind, the original (i.e. before the trimming) version of this page was just fine. Until such time as this becomes more than just a proposed policy, I do not believe it should be used as if it were. Secondly, even if you do not buy that argument, just as we have made exceptions for notable films (see Talk:Casablanca (film) or Talk:Double Indemnity (film)), I believe such a work equally deserves an exception based on its status as one of the the world's best novels (per WP: In 2005 the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. It was awarded a place on both lists of w:Modern Library 100 Best Novels, reaching number 41 on the editor's list, and 25 on the reader's list.). For both of these reasons (the enforcement of only a proposed policy and the stature of the work), I believe the trimming is unnecessary. ~ UDScott (talk) 19:47, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply
I'm not citing LOQ; I'm suggesting that the current level of quotation exceeds the bounds of fair use, per WQ:COPY (which is an approved policy). Nikkimaria (talk) 04:08, 20 June 2014 (UTC)Reply
WQ:COPY and WQ:LOQ are directly related here. -- Mdd (talk) 01:25, 21 June 2014 (UTC)Reply
In the matter of citing WQ:LOQ I think it is just a matter of good governance to uphold these standards. We all know that exceeding those limits can (sooner or later) be a severe liability, and even while upholding there is always a risk. Upholding those rules just keeps it simple for all of us. Just be creative within those margins. -- Mdd (talk) 01:25, 21 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Legit quote? edit

I just read this great quote attributed to William Golding:

"I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been."

Does anyone know if and when he said this?—This unsigned comment is by JenGWrites (talkcontribs) .

0 Google Books hits, appears to be a fake. ~ DanielTom (talk) 16:35, 18 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you so much!

A longer version of the this quote is circulating at the moment (4 July 2016), most of which is likely a recent fabrication, but the first sentence appears to be authentic; see:

http://www.snopes.com/william-golding-on-women/

The reason it is not show up in Google Books is that it is from a transcribed broadcast, I believe.

The Snopes link now has audio of him saying the sentence above. I'll add it to the page. -- Hux (talk) 06:01, 17 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
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